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Monday, January 30, 2017

Happy, happy Monday to ya! This week's WWYS challenge is Sealed With Love. This bundle has so many fun elements to it that it was really fun to play with. I also used the DSP that pairs with this set and piece of the beautiful glassine sheets.

I love these adorable little curly-ques that I used to embellish the corners of the sentiment piece.

Thanks for stopping by today! I'll see you soon! If you've got a few minutes head on over to the What Will You Stamp Challenge blog and check out what the rest of the design team has made.

Monday, January 23, 2017

Happy Tuesday everybody! I have some really exciting news to share. Yesterday I was notified by Stampin' Up! that I have been selected to be a Display Stamper at the San Diego On Stage event in April! I can't tell you how excited I am as I know there was a thick group of talent that applied. Pretty soon I'll be receiving a box of products to create cards and other items to share at the event in April. The biggest torture will be that I won't be able to share any of it with you until after the event. I'm not sure how I'll contain my excitement but I suppose I'll have to manage.

Now, on to my project for today. I've decided to start focusing on sharing fun techniques with you, hopefully, every week. I'm in a collaborative group of creative and artistic stampers and we are working together to bring you multiple card tutorials on specific techniques each month. This month I focused on the Distressed Glue Technique. Have you ever heard of it? I hadn't until last month but it is one of the most fun and rewarding techniques I have tried in a long time. I used it to create the background on this card and I love the way it came out. The glue gives it texture and makes the ink blend in such a cool way.

Supplies:

Cardstock: Basic Gray, Whisper White, Pool Party, Bermuda Bay, Vellum

Ink: Daffodil Delight, Smoky Slate, Bermuda Bay

Metallic Doily: large, silver and cut in half

Silver 5/8” (1.6cm) Satin Ribbon

Whisper White Solid Baker’s Twine

Layering Circle Framelits Dies

Birds & Blooms Thinlits Dies

Hexagons Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder

Softly Falling Embossing Folder

Liquid Adhesive: Fine Tip Glue Pen or Elmer’s Glue

Acrylic Block

Plastic sheet or Clear Envelope

Measurements:

Card Base in Basic Gray: 4 1⁄4” x 11” and scored at 5 1/2"

Layer 1 in Basic Gray: 4 1/8” x 5 3/8”

Whisper White (Distressed Glue Background): 4” x 5 1⁄4”

Vellum:2x41⁄2” and Embossed with Hexagon Embossing Folder

Silver Ribbon: 8”

~2" Circles of Pool Party and Bermuda Bay Embossed with the Softly Falling Folder

First, squirt some glue onto a clean surface (plastic sheet, clear envelope or large acrylic block) and use an acrylic block to apply the glue to the Whisper White background piece. I used Elmer's glue but you can also use the fine tip glue pen for this technique. Let glue dry completely.

Use sponge daubers to apply both Daffodil Delight and Smoky Slate ink over the dried
glue.

You can see in this photo how the dried glue affects the absorption of the ink into the paper creating an interesting look.

After the Daffodil Delight, I added Smokey Slate and made sure to blend it over the edges of the Daffodil Delight.

Sponge Bermuda Bay ink over the top of the Daffodil Delight and Smoky Slate. There you have it. Your distressed ink background is done. Yes, it really is that easy!

4. Adhere the distressed glue background to the Basic Gray mat. Use a Big Shot to cut circles
out of Pool Party and Bermuda Bay then emboss them with the Softly Falling Embossing
Folder and adhere them together. Emboss the vellum with the Hexagon folder.

5. Put the card together by first adhering the vellum and silver ribbon to the distressed layer.
Then wrap the twine around the card three times and tie a bow. Adhere the silver doily to
the back of the colored circles and attach it to the card front tucked under the twine. Add
the bird using dimensionals. Now adhere the card face to your card base using
dimensionals. Your finished card will look like this.

I hope you'll give this technique a try. I can't wait to try it with other colors. Its pretty late so I'm signing off for now but please let me know what you come up with if you try this technique.

Have a good one!
-Maria

Need more stamps now? Never fear! I've got you covered!

Want a great discount on Stampin' Up! Products and to have a fun new stamping family? Join me on this fun adventure! I can't wait to be your super excited (possibly way too enthusiastic... No! That's not possible!) Stampin' Up! side kick and support lady! In case you didn't know, you can join Stampin' Up! just for the discount and never sell a single product. If you want to know the details just let me know. If you're looking for a discount on your favorite hobby (stamping and paper crafting with Stampin' Up! products) and want to earn money doing it... let me know! I'd love to talk with you whatever your interest might be! If you want to see a little more info go ahead and click the button below. Looking forward to hearing from you!

It's been too long since I've blogged... but here I am. I'm finally back and ready to share again (I've been deep cleaning my craft room and putting away Christmas and all sorts of boring things not worth mentioning). Honestly, I've been so busy that I haven't had much time to stamp lately. After two rounds of pneumonia this winter I've decided that my late night crafting (often until 3 or 4am) must be put on hold for a while. I've got to put my health first so you might see a little less production out of me but I sure hope not!

Anyhow, on to today's card and I've even got a tutorial for you! I'm sure there are some people who get a bit bugged out by this set but I love it! I often say that I could've been an entomologist because I find insects so fascinating. Right when I saw this set I knew I wanted to emboss these beautiful beetles and watercolor them. I imagined doing it with the aqua painter but couldn't resist using the new water color pencils from Stampin' Up! If you haven't tried them yet-the pencils are awesome! Here's my card...

I really wanted these cards to have some dimension so after watercoloring them I added Clear Wink of Stella and a large dose of liquid adhesive from the fine-tip glue pen. It created what I'm calling a Stained Glass effect.

I love the way these shiny beetles look in person. It was hard to capture the shimmer, shine and dimension in these pictures. If you run your finger over the beetles they actually pop off of the page.

After creating my stained glass background I added an embossed sentiment on a strip of vellum so that you could still see the background. I embellished with some black metallic thread and popped the card face up on a base of Pacific Point.

Hopefully somebody will get a kick out of this card! If you'd like to make your own, here's how (if you need a link to purchase the products you will need please see the product table at the bottom of my post):

Wipe the Whisper White image
piece down with your Stampin’ Buddy and then stamp the beetle image
multiple times using Versamark Ink. Cover all the versamark ink with Gold
Embossing Powder and heat and set with your heat tool.

Color the beetles using the
watercolor pencils of your choice. Let dry.

Color all of the beetles with
Clear Wink of Stella. Let dry.

Fill all of the beetle wings in
with adhesive from the fine tip glue pen. It will stay trapped in the
wings because of the embossing and give a raised look like a shiny shell.
Let dry.

Using Tombow adhere the image
piece to the black mat.

Attach the matted image piece
to cardbase using dimensionals. Set aside.

Wipe your vellum down with your
Stampin’ Buddy. Then stamp the sentiment in the Versamark ink and then
immediately into the Archival Black ink. Then stamp your vellum banner.
Add Clear Embossing Powder and use your heat tool to heat and set.

Wrap Black Metallic Thread
around the left side of the vellum bannerand tie a bow.

Add Mini Glue Dots to the back
of the vellum. Roll them up so that they are narrow and stick them to the
back side of the letters so that they will not be visible from the front.
Adhere vellum to the card.

Have fun with this and if you make one of your own I would love to see what you make! Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Have an amazing day!

Maria.P.S. Don't forget that right now is Sale-a-Bration! for every $50 US (CSV) that you spend on product you will receive one FREE product of your choice from the Sale-a-Bration catalog!

PRODUCT SUPPLY LIST:

Need more stamps now? Never fear! I've got you covered!

Want a great discount on Stampin' Up! Products and to have a fun new stamping family? Join me on this fun adventure! I can't wait to be your super excited (possibly way too enthusiastic... No! That's not possible!) Stampin' Up! side kick and support lady! In case you didn't know, you can join Stampin' Up! just for the discount and never sell a single product. If you want to know the details just let me know. If you're looking for a discount on your favorite hobby (stamping and paper crafting with Stampin' Up! products) and want to earn money doing it... let me know! I'd love to talk with you whatever your interest might be! If you want to see a little more info go ahead and click the button below. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Happy New Year and welcome back to the first One Stamp at a Time Blog Hop of the year! I'm so thrilled to be back on this design team and can't wait to see what the rest of the designers have created to share with us today. The sky is the limit because this month's theme is "No Rules New Year" and we are free to create whatever we want! As always with this hop, each designer has both a card and project to share with you-so make sure to tour the whole hop (Blog roll at the bottom of my post).

For my card I used some of my favorite new products from the Occasions catalog. The beautiful pink "medallion" with leaves cut out is from the new "That's the Tag" bundle. It's one of my favorites from this catalog as I think there is just so much that can be done with it. I layered the Pink Pirouette medallion on top of both Pool Party and Basic Black medallions to make the negative cut-outs really stand out. I layered the medallions on top of some vellum, lace and a doily and topped them off with some black metallic thread. I like the contrast between the strong look of the the Basic Black and the other softer elements on this card.

Have you noticed that incredible DSP in the background yet? That's the new Falling in Love DSP and it's my favorite from the new Occasions catalog! It's a weird favorite for me because I usually tend to like bold, bright colors. This paper is so soft, and pretty and whimsical that I couldn't help loving it!

On to my project(s) we go! This past December I did my first craft fair. One of the items that I made were these notebooks (blanks were from my local Dollar Tree) and I absolutely love them! They were pretty popular and I sold quite a few of them. Each notebook is a little bit different but they all involve the Dragonfly Dreams stamp set and/or framelits and some watercoloring.

On my first notebook I stamped the dragonfly in Black on the notebook cover. Then I watercolored a piece of watercolor paper and matted it on some Basic Black paper. I used some black twine to add a bow and adhered the piece to notebook then I added the gold dragonflies.

My second notebook is a bit more simple and it was the notebooks like these that were the most popular. I watercolored a larger background and matted it on black paper. Then I spattered it with Black ink and Clear Wink of Stella.

I topped off the colorful background with silver foil dragonflies and silver metallic accents. The cute little corner stamps are from a set called Helping Me Grow.

My third notebook is watercolored in pink! I am telling you that Melon Mambo and Flirty Flamingo are the perfect color combo for watercoloring. I love the way these two colors blend and still hold a contrast.

On this notebook I opted for a larger, white dragonfly. I splattered the background generously with Clear Wink of Stella and embellished with rhinestones.

That's it for today. I sure hope you liked what I had to share. If you did, come back soon! If you're interested in purchasing or checking out the products that I used please scroll down past the Blog Roll. Now I'll send you on your way to the next talented stamper on this hop, Renee Ondrajka!

Want a great discount on Stampin' Up! Products and to have a fun new stamping family? Join me on this fun adventure! I can't wait to be your super excited (possibly way too enthusiastic... No! That's not possible!) Stampin' Up! side kick and support lady! In case you didn't know, you can join Stampin' Up! just for the discount and never sell a single product. If you want to know the details just let me know. If you're looking for a discount on your favorite hobby (stamping and paper crafting with Stampin' Up! products) and want to earn money doing it... let me know! I'd love to talk with you whatever your interest might be! If you want to see a little more info go ahead and click the button below. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Friday, January 6, 2017

You're probably wondering what I'm talking about, right? Well, Stampin' Up! just put the call out for Display Stampers for On Stage in April and I've decided to apply. I don't know if you've ever been to On Stage or not but one of my favorite things to look at are all of the amazing projects created with new products by the display stampers. I've always thought what a lucky bunch those stampers are getting their hands on new product before anyone else even gets to see it... AND, they get first play at everything! So cool! So this time around I've decided to apply and give it my best shot... This blog post is my application and it includes three standard sized cards, two 3D projects and.... Dun, Dun, Dun! a Scrapbook Layout! I know what you're thinking, I don't scrapbook. True. I didn't even have any pictures to use but I found a way to get creative anyway and I sure hope you will like it.

Here's my first card. Check out these new products from the Occasions catalog! The stamp and the amazing arrow and envelope thinlits are from the Sending Love suite. That soft and beautiful paper is the new Falling in Love DSP. Wondering where that sentiment came from? Yep, I clipped it out of a winter set called Flurry of Wishes. Useful sentiments like this are often hiding in the least expected places.

My second card is a Christmas card and my favorite part of it is the little mess of metallic thread and jingle bells. I also love this DSP-it was my favorite this holiday season.

Here's a close up of those fun little jingle bells! I hope you like this jolly little bundle of Christmas sparkle as much as I do!

My third card is another Christmas card. This moose is so adorable! I sponged him a little bit to give him some texture and layered him over gold metallic thread, an embossed star in Real Red and a background of stars stamped in Versamark.

My first 3D project is one that I made this fall. Originally it was filled with candy corns but those only lasted 'till the photo shoot was over before my husband and I ate them all.

I wanted to showcase the candy corns inside the box because the colors are so bright and pretty. I used my leaf framelits to cut a window in the side of the box and used a window sheet on the inside of the box to seal the box back up.

Of course I couldn't just leave the box plain so I added a belly band in Daffodil Delight and Bermuda Bay. I topped the belly band off with some gold ribbon, the leaf that I cut from the side of the box and a banner with sentiment.

The belly band easily slides off so that the box can be opened... so that my husband and I can eat all of the candy...

For my second 3D project I'm sharing a llamapaca box that I made. It's filled with a set of six mini llamapaca cards with matching mini envelopes. I am a huge fan of this set and love the vibrant colors of the DSP! Put it together with the llamapacas and it's a serious recipe for smiles!

Ok! Here we are. We've arrived at the project that proved the biggest challenge for me...The Scrapbook Layout. I've been out of town camping and haven't had much time to create this week. It's Thursday night (actually it is now after 2am on Friday morning but I am getting this done before I go to bed!) and I knew that if I didn't make the time to create my first scrapbook layout ever I wouldn't be able to submit this application. So, here we go, and please forgive the bad lighting in my pics. I live in the mountains and took these pictures in the middle of the night and I really struggled with trying to get good pics because of poor lighting. It's hard to see the details of the background in this first picture but it does allow for you to see the layout that I created.

My idea was to create a page that would highlight just one very special photo. I think sometimes it can be more striking to use just one photo as the focal point of the page than it is to have too many pictures and have none of them stand out.

I used some textured paper for the background (layered over Basic Black and Smoky Slate) and splattered it with Bermuda Bay, Tempting Turquoise and Basic Black inks. I also added some heavy spatters of Clear Wink of Stella to add some shimmer.

I watercolored a doily to match and layered it with different pieces of paper, ribbon and thread in silvers and black. I had fun making sure there were different textures on there and finished the page off by adding enamel dots in both metallic silver and blues.

Here's one last look. Now the real challenge will be for me to continue with scrapbook layouts. This was really fun to make and I now I just need to find the perfect picture to add to finish it off.

Well, that's it for now. I've got to get up in a few hours and go to work and act like a person-not a zombie. Thanks for stopping by and checking out what I've got to share!

Have an amazing day!

Maria.

Need more stamps now? Never fear! I've got you covered!

Want a great discount on Stampin' Up! Products and to have a fun new stamping family? Join me on this fun adventure! I can't wait to be your super excited (possibly way too enthusiastic... No! That's not possible!) Stampin' Up! side kick and support lady! In case you didn't know, you can join Stampin' Up! just for the discount and never sell a single product. If you want to know the details just let me know. If you're looking for a discount on your favorite hobby (stamping and paper crafting with Stampin' Up! products) and want to earn money doing it... let me know! I'd love to talk with you whatever your interest might be! If you want to see a little more info go ahead and click the button below. Looking forward to hearing from you!